


A Green Jar

by Hiruma_Musouka



Series: canon commentary [8]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Gen, Magical Artifacts, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6578809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiruma_Musouka/pseuds/Hiruma_Musouka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He keeps his heart on her kitchen counter: green jar, brown cork.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Adrien

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [writing prompt](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/190306) by writeworld. 



> I'm not sure if "street magic!AU" is the right term for this, but I love the exploration of magic in modern day. I wrote this when I was really discontent and wanted to write during a block on all my other ideas. The entire story flowed very well after I found the prompt on tumblr.
> 
> Thanks again to Lauren who edited this once (before I messed with the tenses again). Any mistakes left are my fault :)

He keeps his heart on her kitchen counter: green jar, brown cork.

It's not like he particularly _wants_ to have his heart outside his chest! But that's... it's the price for Chat Noir's power. The Miraculouses are more than just street magic. They're more than the coin tricks or the makeup spells or the tingle of _health-happiness-fulfillment_ that's in the home-cooked meals Adrien has never tasted for himself. The Miraculouses are awe inspiring, powerful, and _old_.

Old magics always have a price.

So now he has his heart in a jar instead of inside him.

He isn't even sure how that works to be honest. What's pumping his blood if his heart isn't there? Is it still there physically but not metaphysically? Is this a representation of his heart or his actual heart because he could literally feel fingers in his chest when he first touched it after putting on Plagg's ring.

And he could feel pain when the shock of that had made him grip it too tightly right afterwards.

Putting it in a jar just seemed safest after that. No way to touch it or for it to get damaged accidentally. It's safest behind glass. (That's something he had already known far too well before he even met Plagg. He's just... never been very good at making his heart as untouchable as his father's.)

But what to _do_ with it?!

He had thought it would be safe in his room. Didn't even think twice about that until after the first week where he'd spent the entire time on edge whenever he was away from the house without being Chat. Every moment had been spent with half of him practically bristling, fur straight up, worrying about it.

Because Adrien really does think the staff might throw it out if they found it.

He's never been stupid enough to think that he really has anything to himself at home. Even though he does clean his own room, he's sure one of the staff goes through and cleans more thoroughly or just checks that the room doesn't need it. And his father certainly wouldn't think twice about inquiring after anything to do with him even if it should be Adrien's personal business. His best defense there is that his father would have to actually take interest in his room before he'd bother coming in, and given that Adrien hasn't seen him in over a week at this point... well, it speaks for itself.

It still doesn't feel safe though, because none of them would hesitate to throw out a simple flower.

And that's all his heart looks like after Plagg's magic had removed it. Just a flower. And maybe if someone looks at it closely enough they'll realize that it has a twirl of magic so that it changes every day to a new species, but that just makes it a much more expensive flower. Adrien's sure that there's a florist somewhere who makes money doing just that with a twist of plant magic, but the only thing special about his heart is that it doesn't decay like even an enchanted flower would.

He does like it though. The changing surprised him on day two but not more than the fact his heart looks like flower to begin with. And Adrien had laughed hard on day three when he'd looked up the flowers and realized they were named _Cat's Tail_ , _Pussy Willow_ , and _Tiger's Paw_.

Apparently his quiet love of puns is so pawsitively thorough that it goes right down to his heart.

But it still leaves him with the problem that a single flower in a jar isn't safe in his room. And Plagg is more soberly avoidant than lazily unhelpful when he fails to mention what would happen to Adrien if something happened to the flower. Except Adrien isn't an idiot and _it is his heart_.

Adrien might only have had some normal minor magic before receiving his ring, but he knows his stories and legends.

So he worries about it a lot. He takes his heart and its bottle with him to school and modeling and fencing lessons. He spends a lot of time online researching spells when he's stuck at home under his father's curfew, and he creates a protective spell with Plagg's reluctant help that will keep the glass from being broken or from opening to anyone without a Miraculous. He practices getting used to being Chat Noir and getting ready for whatever might come as well, but Plagg absolutely refuses to cooperate for any patrolling of Paris until Adrien has a safe place for his heart no matter how much Camembert Adrien tries to bribe him with.

And yeah, he could see why being worried or distracted while you were fighting would be a _really bad thing_.

But it isn't until he, Nino, and Alya are all invited over by a stammering Marinette to work on their school project before having dinner that he finally hits on a good idea. Because Marinette is a genuinely nice person, even if she's maybe too nice to tell him how he makes her uncomfortable. And her family is a good family, and they seem to care about any of her friends who walk through the door, and dinner is... it is one of the nicest things that has happened to Adrien in a very long time.

It's a good home.

Plagg had said that it was vital to keep his heart somewhere safe and that warm, happy, sunny places were the next best thing to cheese and naps. So instead of leaving right away when the night finally ends, Adrien plucks up the courage he has as Chat Noir (even if he can't manage the confidence) and stammers his way through giving Mrs. Cheng a thank-you gift.

_"It's— it's not much. But the glass has a protective spell scratched in so it can't be broken and the flower changes every day, and—"_

_"Thank you, Adrien. It's very lovely, but you didn't need to bring a gift."_

_"No, I... I wanted to. If you don't think you'd keep it, that's ok, but it's important to me and you have a really nice family and—"_

_"We'd love to keep it."_

And maybe it's stupid to just give his heart away like this. It probably _is_ stupid given the inscrutable look Plagg gives him before saying that every cat makes its choice about where it leaves its pawprints.

Even if it turns out poorly though, Adrien thinks he's ok with that. Maybe he'll collapse one day as Chat Noir and never know what happened. Maybe he'll end up as a warning to children by being the new victim in a modern-day Black Witch fairytale. Maybe it's _really dumb_ to have your heart so far away from where you spend your time when you're a growing teenager who hasn't even hit eighteen yet.

But Adrien remembers the kind smiles and the laughs and the good food and how everything just felt _better_ that night, and no matter what Marinette might think of him, the wide-eyed look of wonder she gave that flower when her mother held it was better than anything he can imagine his father giving it.

It'll get a lot more sunlight in their kitchen at any rate.

He just hopes that Ladybug found somewhere just as kind and safe to store her own heart, whatever it might be. Maybe she'll trust him enough one day that he'll find out what it is.

And maybe he'll be able to show her his own at that point, too.


	2. Tikki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It glimmered faintly in her shadowed room: as perfect as anything associated with Adrien was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like playing in this verse again, so here's another chapter. It's still marked complete though because I have no idea if it's going anywhere: there's certainly no plot yet. Right now, it's mostly an opportunity to play with character POVs, headcanons, and practice at writing in present tense. (I've still only seen 7 ML episodes... I should fix that. Get a better sense for characters. This is still really early though so Mari seems in-character to me.)
> 
> As always, feel free to make comments or ask questions. You, too, could be the next source for inspiration! ;)

"Do you think he spelled it himself, Tikki?" Marinette asks, trying not to squeal as she sits down at her desk and turns the jar around carefully.

It's such a pretty thing! A clear jar with light and dark green dots clustered around the bottom few inches with transparent green designs flowing up the sides. And the flower! Once she brought it upstairs so Tikki could get a chance to look at it in the privacy of her bedroom, she could see that the flower actually had a faint internal glow which wasn't visible in stronger light.

She hadn't noticed that when Adrien had given it to her mom earlier. She'd been too busy trying not to make a fool of herself while saying goodbye and _Alya!_ Alya was never going to let her live down her stuttering and choking on her own tongue and _France_! How did she manage to mispronounce France as fromage while they were working on their history project! Cheese had nothing to do with politics and Nino had snorted so god knows what Adrien thought and he must think she was so weird and her parents, oh god, her parents saw her acting like a spaz and what if they remember this next time and what if her mother prods them upstairs to work in her room and Adrien sees all her pictures and—

"Adrien can never come here again!" she whisper-shrieks, head whipping around to stare in horror at all the incriminating pictures in her room.

"Now, Marinette," Tikki says reasonably, perching on one of the arms Marinette had wrapped around the jar as she clutches it to her chest in a death grip. "I thought you wanted to get to know Adrien better? This project is a great opportunity for you!"

The girl stares at her kwami, whites showing around her blue eyes.

"He'll discover I'm a freak, tell his father, _Gabriel Agreste_ will find out I'm a lunatic with a creepy crush on his son, he'll withdraw Adrien from school, I'll never get to see Adrien again, my career in the fashion industry will be _ruined forever_ , we'll never get married, and _therewillbenohamsters,Tikki!_ " Marinette finishes, distressed as her verbal car crash of predictions screeches to a messy stop.

Tikki pats her arm soothingly.

"I'm sure things will be better than that, Marinette," she says, tactfully restraining the urge to mention how the detailed copy of Adrien's schedule actually does count as creepy even if the pictures are ok.

After all, those are published pictures from fashion magazines and advertisements. It's a sign of a youthful crush that one of them is framed, but it's not like Marinette went around and covertly took the pictures herself. Tikki has had enough Ladybugs by now to know that humans found celebrity crushes to be an acceptable and normal part of human emotional development.

But the _schedule_... well. Tikki will need to have a kind but stern discussion with Marinette about the schedule if that behavior lingers longer than her teenage years. No Ladybug of hers is going to slide into obsession unwittingly!

_Especially given what she now has access to if she steps onto that path_ , Tikki thinks, sneaking a peak inside the glass bottle in front of her face. Having a sample of blood or hair is already useful enough when it comes to distance or anchored spells. _This_... A caster can do a great deal of subtle spells using this. Even the interesting way that Adrien's magic had reflexively patterned itself earlier can't stop a spell using his heart-flower! The magic would slide right under both his natural resistance as well as the additional protections a Miraculous gives its wearer and start affecting him immediately.

_Of course, it would only work for a little while_ , Tikki considers, antenna twitching slightly at an ancient memory of Cataclysm bubbling down a slave tether before green eyes flared white. _Then Plagg would catch what was happening to his Chosen, and all of Paris would abruptly be ground zero for the instinctive lash out that occurs when someone tries herding the avatar of a_ destructive cat god.

Which is to say nothing about the ramifications to both Chat Noir and Ladybug if that happened. Any such spell would be dubious enough morally that Tikki would be obligated to choose a new Ladybug, and Chat... This Chat is one of the kinder and most trusting towards Ladybug. Plagg having to explain what Misstep was and _why_ it triggered... even if he's bound not to mention Ladybug's identity, it would be almost as bad as what would happen should Hawkmoth recognized the move.

But...

"It will be fine," Tikki says, both to herself and to a slightly calmer Marinette. "You have a lot of good qualities! There is a reason you were chosen to be Ladybug, after all. Just be yourself, Marinette! Don't focus too much on your imperfect qualities like your slight tendency towards jealousy," she pauses here to give Marinette a scolding look as the embarrassed girl laughs weakly. "No person is perfect, Marinette. Not even Adrien, you know? It's ok to be a little unique. Just keep being the kind of person who would make a scarf and then stay quiet about it so that someone else can be happier. I'm very proud of you for that."

"Thanks, Tikki," Marinette says, smiling as she finally relaxes fully.

"You're welcome!" Tikki says brightly, fluttering upward to sit on top of the bottle's cork. "Now why don't you put the jar down so I can get a good look at it? I haven't been able to see it very well yet!"

"Sorry," Marinette says, brushing dark blue hair behind her ears with one hand as she puts the bottle down on her desk with a soft clink. "I got a little distracted."

Tikki hums in reply, slowly flying around the jar.

The magic feels pretty much as she had expected from those rare times she had seen a Chat's heart. A flower fits the little bit of (objective) knowledge she's picked up so far on Adrien Agreste from Marinette's ramblings, and it also matches the kindness and resilient attitude that she's observed in Chat Noir. The vitality and vividness of the plant says encouraging things about how well Plagg's chosen is emotionally adjusting to being Chat, though Tikki knows better than to expect her lazy counterpart to be helping Adrien handle the subtle aspects of Chat's magic. It'll be ages before Chat gets the hang of directing all his ambient bad luck intentionally rather than spreading it to all enemies subconsciously.

Plagg is exasperatingly fond of watching his Cats run into metaphorical glass doors as they get used to things rather than giving advice. 'It builds good reflexes,' her little red tail!

The flower doesn't have nearly as many blooms as she would expect from something in the Anigozanthos genus, if it's the same plant her last Australian Ladybug showed her, but sadly, that isn't surprising either. Plagg's kittens tend to come from rougher backgrounds no matter how well they hide it behind wild grins or prideful snaps of their tails. No cat likes to have people poking at their soft spots uninvited even when they _are_ demanding attention.

But Australian plants are hardy and made for surviving extreme dry spells. They come back even when their exposed parts seem to die. If this is part of who Adrien is, then Tikki's sure they'll see more blooms on this flower given time.

"I wonder where he bought the flower?" Marinette wonders, gently tracing one of the smoky patterns on the jar as she watches the flower's faint light reflect off her fingernail. "The jar's really pretty too, and it's kind of ironic that the dots at the bottom look a bit like green Ladybug spots, but I don't remember hearing about a florist nearby with more than hedgecraft level magic. Although the Agrestes can probably afford the more expensive ones I wouldn't know about. Maybe that's why the jar's so unique, right Tikki? A master herbalist would probably give a complimentary bottle with a purchase. Although a vase would make more sense... I wonder if mother knew how expensive it was. Adrien's really far too nice!"

"Oh, it's not from a florist," Tikki says unthinkingly before subtly freezing when she notices how Marinette turns to look at her with a curious tilt to her head.

"How do you know?" Marinette asks.

Tikki takes a moment to wish she'd been munching on a cookie instead of accidentally opening her mouth.

"Well, the flower's not _quite_ a flower," she explains truthfully, thoughts resolutely buzzing ahead. "It only looks like it does because of magic rather than being a flower with magic cast on it like a florist would have." _Which is... factually true._ "A Kwami like I am can feel these things, you know! And besides!" she says, perking up as inspiration comes to her. "A specialist like you mentioned would make sure their product had some sort of mark on it for identification like how you put your name on your designs or how your bakery has it's logo on your take-out bags or boxes. The best place to put something like that would be on the bottle itself, specifically the cork's flat outside surface, and there's no signature anywhere!"

"Huh... you're right!" Marinette says, quickly looking over the bottle, even carefully lifting it to check the bottom without upending the flower or the soil inside. "But... does that mean that _Adrien made this himself?!_ " she exclaims, brain abruptly stalling out as her eyes widen anew.

"Exactly!" Tikki chirps, patting the bottle next to her. "It's a little bit roughly made even though the spells are very stable and when you lifted the bottle, I could see that there were scratches in the bottom of the glass where the spells are anchored. Most crafters paint glass or solder it with metal and root the magic in those since it's tricky to scratch glass deep enough without having a stray line out of place." _Considering most people don't have magically sharpened claws._ "It's probably an amateur attempt because you can see that a few of the dots like this one are a bit misshapen," she says, pointing specifically at a large, slightly triangular spot of dark green. "And the smoky designs look a bit like vines, don't they?" Tikki nudges suggestively, gesturing upward at the bottle. "Well, that's from the magic spreading up from the bottom of the bottle! They're all very pretty designs, but it's actually the protective part of the magic taking root inside the glass itself. I would strongly suggest not trying to open it or anything because while you can probably throw it against the wall, opening it would destabilize the magic in the jar since it's an amateur creation."

She pauses to look at Marinette, holding her breath for a moment before continuing.

"Adrien must not have a lot of practical experience with craft magics, but I think he did a very good job on this one, don't you?" Tikki asks.

"Of course!" Marinette says, smiling. "I'll have to ask mom what types of pastries she think I can give him as a thank you gift at school on Monday. I know she and dad liked it, too."

_I am going to pull on Plagg's whiskers one day for making me scramble like that to cover them without really lying_ , Tikki thinks, tension finally relaxing from her tail as Marinette starts getting ready for bed. _At least nothing on the bottle has Chat Noir's black color on it: lime green goes well with plants, and suggesting the 'smoke' are 'vines' will create a stronger mental connection so that no one notices the 'cat tail' shapes. All the dots safely camouflage the pawprint mark that manifested when Adrien powered it as Chat, and no one will think anything of an amateur attempt having imperfections so the center pad of the pawprint is just a misshapen circle instead. Well done, Tikki!_

... _Thank goodness that heart magic and deep magics aren't widely known or taught._

"Why don't you put the jar back downstairs before you go to bed, Marinette," she suggests. "The flower will stay healthier if it's put in an environment with a lot of familial love and sunshine. The kitchen or living room should be perfect."

"That sounds good," the teen agrees, "I'll leave it in the open, so mama can put it where she likes once she gets up."

Tikki watches her Chosen head back downstairs, unknowingly holding Chat Noir's heart-flower and just slumps forward onto her stomach, chin propped up on the table.

This is not what Tikki had been expecting to happen so soon after her Ladybug started out. She's halfway tempted to think this is Plagg causing mischief for his own entertainment at her expense, but hearts are never a joke, and where it counts, Plagg is as loyal to his chosen as any Kwami can possibly be. The Egypt incident proved that he is absolutely willing to get down and dangerous and sneaky if need be to keep his Cats alive. If _Tikki_ hadn't known Adrien was Chat until Marinette had touched the jar, Plagg couldn't have known before then that Marinette was Ladybug.

It's dangerous enough for Chat to let his heart out of his sight and hand it off to someone he barely knows. It's much more risky when he unwittingly gives it to someone capable of ignoring the protective spells without even knowing about them! Especially when Tikki _can't_ reengage that spell matrix afterwards. And Plagg can't explain to Adrien that the jar's in danger of being opened without running up against the rule that prevents them from disclosing a Chosen's identity. Adrien must know what the only weak point in the jar is given that Plagg helped him create that spell graft.

... Tikki's not quite sure she wants to know _why_ Plagg cooperated with making the jar rather than gorging on cheese until Adrien changed his mind. It's not her place to ask about it either since Adrien doesn't know her. At least, she was able to make sure there's no way Mari will open it now. Not with how much she likes Adrien.

She rolls over, looking upwards towards the bottom of the loft, and beyond that to the bed where Marinette has hidden her own heart, wedged between the mattress and the wall.

"I guess it's a good thing Marinette's isn't a flower. She's less likely to guess this way."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The picture's messy and please pretend the red colors on the jar are green: I don't have a green pen and my photo editing skills are hard-won and don't extend to figuring out how to shift color shades using my computer. Also, the glass is transparent so we should be seeing faint impressions from the other side, but again: extensive art skills not included in this product.


End file.
